Heortology

by K. A. Heinrich Kellner

In the construction of the ecclesiastical year, the Gallic and Spanish Churches followed the Roman. The Mozarabic breviary has five Sundays in Advent, but they stand at the beginning. They are in the same position in the Liber Responsalis sive Antiphonarius, contained in a Codex of Compiègne belonging to the ninth century, and falsely attributed to Gregory the Great.[397]

The Gregorian sacramentary simply numbers the Sundays consecutively after Pentecost, but in the Frankish lectionaries there are signs of an attempt to separate the Sundays after Pentecost into groups—Sundays after SS. Peter and Paul, Sundays after St Lawrence, etc.—but the custom was afterwards abandoned.

In France, this division of the Sundays after Pentecost seems to have been general in the eighth century. The Homilarium of Charlemagne divides them as follows:—

22	{	Four Sundays after Epiphany.
	{	Three Sundays after Pentecost.
	{	Seven Sundays after SS. Peter and Paul (Post Natale Apostolorum).
	{	Five Sundays after St Lawrence.
	{	The September Ember Week (Feria iv., vi., et sabb. et Dominica).
	{	Six Sundays after St Michael, 29th Sept. (Post S. Angeli).

The Kalendarium Frontonis divides them thus:—

19	{	Two Sundays after Pentecost.
	{	Six Sundays after SS. Peter and Paul (Post Natale Apostolorum).
	{	Four Sundays after St Lawrence.
	{	Seven Sundays after St Cyprian (Post S. Cypriani).

This gives only nineteen after Pentecost, and so the Kalendarium Frontonis has ten Sundays after Epiphany until Septuagesima, which must clearly have helped to fill up, when necessary, what was wanting at the end of the year.

The Comes Albini in Ranke (App. iv.) gives:—

		Five Sundays after Epiphany.
21	{	Four Sundays post Pentecosten.
	{	Five Sundays post natale SS. Apostolorum.
	{	Five Sundays post natale S. Laurentii.
	{	One Dominica mensis septimi.
	{	Six Sundays post S. Angeli scil. dedicationem basilicæ S. Archangeli (Michælis).
		Four Sundays in Advent.